Mainstreaming True Cost Accounting

ACTonTCA

 
 
 

True Cost Accounting (TCA) measures the hidden costs of the food system.

We’re reimagining a food system that does more than just yield outputs. It nourishes.

We aim to evolve today’s food system to optimize for widely-cast metrics that define success for people, health, business, and planet.

Our focus is on equipping food system decision-makers with frameworks and tools to adopt a wider lens that is tuned to their roles.

OUR FINDINGS

What we learned:

We learned contextual metrics throughout the product innovation process and deeper supplier collaboration are key to improving health, environmental, and community impact across the supply chain.

  • Providing richer contextual metrics at decision-making points would help bring hidden costs into view in support of product innovation and sourcing decisions.

  • Providing capabilities to support deeper supplier collaboration would further support product innovation and development agility.

Nature Interactive conducted research to build, test, and iterate hypotheses for the most effective avenues by which to accelerate adoption of true cost accounting (TCA). Our research focused on product innovation and sourcing stakeholders within consumer packaged goods, retail, and pharmaceutical enterprises.

What’s next…

We’re building a proof of concept. Our research revealed clear opportunities and demand for solutions that bridge information gaps, deepen relationships with suppliers, and enable faster, de-risked innovation.

Agricultural, distribution, and retail data providers have opportunities to inject their data assets within decision-making workflows to help accelerate TCA adoption and optimize outcomes.

Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about partnering with us.

Why we need TCA.

  • Hidden costs affect everyone.

    The food system is highly interconnected with society and economy and is one of the main drivers for our current environmental and health crises.

    For every 1 USD spent on food, 2 USD is incurred in economic, health and environmental costs, for which society must foot the bill (Ellen MacArthur Foundation).

  • Hidden costs affect the bottom line.

    Hidden costs increase scarcity and risk across the food system, impacting margin.

    Today, the food system relies heavily on yield and productivity to define operational success, largely ignoring costs that indirectly affect the bottom line.

  • We can do better.

    Our food system has evolved to support rapid population growth. However, today’s food system is just an iteration on a path toward’s maturity. With today’s bright minds and technological innovation, we can take what was “good enough” and co-evolve the system towards regeneration.

  • We're missing hidden opportunities.

    Through a narrow focus on yield and productivity, our farmland and health have been deteriorated on a global scale. This contributes to the hidden costs that ultimately resulting in higher costs to produce food with diminishing nutritional value.

    However, existing regenerative and holistic land management practices are known to restore ecosystem balance and increase productivity. There are clear opportunities to improve land management practices and still capture monetary returns, but this is only possible through surfacing hidden costs and aligning metrics to both ecosystem health and growth objectives.

The challenges.

 

Lack of a unified standard.

Despite work undergone through various initiatives to scale TCA, the framework has yet to pass the tipping point whereby a standard method for TCA emerges. This undermines TCA’s adoption across the food industry and favors the status quo.

High Complexity.

Despite increased desire to invest in sustainable food production, businesses lack the understanding and tools to apply and measure TCA due to the highly complex, interconnected forces at work across the food system.

Lack of Enforcement or Incentives for Rapid Adoption.

Key stakeholders like procurement specialists are unfamiliar with TCA and its potential benefits. Further, they lack the incentives and metrics to drive adoption of TCA.

Our unique approach.

 

  • ACTonTCA keeps business success in mind. We recognize the important role that businesses play in enabling change and seek to obtain buy-in through consideration of business sustainability metrics.

  • Our team brings together diverse perspectives to advance this transformative initiative. With experts from various fields, our team includes:

    • a mix of NGO leaders working to create practical TCA tools for the public and private sector,

    • a leader in regenerative innovation from a multi-national CPG brand,

    • restauranteurs with world-class culinary skill driving change on the ground around the world,

    • a groundbreaking startup bringing cutting edge digital and data capabilities to accelerate TCA,

    • a strategy and technology-driven C-Suite consultant bringing a critical lens to our approach.

 

Meet our team.

  • Sofia Moreno Cesar

    FOUNDER, NATURE INTERACTIVE

    ACTonTCA Executive Director

  • Damien Jourdan

    DIRECTOR OF OPEN INNOVATION & COMMUNITY ANIMATION, DANONE

    ACTonTCA Advisor

  • Jenn Yates

    DIRECTOR, TCA ACCELERATOR

    ACTonTCA Advisor

  • Joel Thomas

    DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIPS, ZERO FOODPRINT ASIA

    ACTonTCA Advisor

  • Peggy Chan

    EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ZERO FOODPRINT ASIA

    ACTonTCA Advisor

  • João Brites

    DIRECTOR OF GROWTH & INNOVATION, HOWGOOD

    ACTonTCA Advisor

  • Christina Lampert

    DIRECTOR OF GROWTH & INNOVATION, HOWGOOD

    ACTonTCA Advisor

  • Isabel Hoffman

    rePLANET HEAD OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

    ACTonTCA Advisor